


Secret Joy

by WahlBuilder



Series: 30 days of rarepairs [15]
Category: The Technomancer (Video Game)
Genre: Hand Jobs, Light Angst, M/M, Porn With Plot, Porn with Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-15
Updated: 2018-08-15
Packaged: 2019-06-27 21:37:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15693864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WahlBuilder/pseuds/WahlBuilder
Summary: Ian and Connor get out of Ophir on an easy mission and have a little fun.





	1. Chapter 1

Their group is small—a recon mission, nothing more, to an abandoned farm traveling merchants had found a month ago but had no time to explore. Four soldiers, a rover driver, and two Technomancers. Connor feels it is rather excessive for a recon, but Ian has fought tooth and nail for it, claiming favor from Brandon, and using his mysterious connections within the Army. To get the two of them away on the mission.

By the Shadow, to get out of Ophir for a few days—even if under surveillance of soldiers. Connor always was more a soldier than the mystic many, even in Abundance, hold Technomancers to be.

No, not a soldier, he thinks with a chill running down his spine. He just needs to move. Becoming a junior trainer for cadets has been a blessing (thanks to Ian, again). He needs to stretch his legs once in a while, to get out of the quiet of the Chapel, and tussle in the sand with someone.

In many ways.

The soldiers keep quiet on their way to the farm, and in the crammed space of the rover there is not much privacy—but there is the consolation of Ian sitting near him, their thighs touching, Ian’s collapsed staff lying across his lap, one of the ends pressing down on Connor’s knee.

This simple touch is the sole focus of Connor’s attention while they shudder and judder in the rover, the “military-grade” mechanism just like anything else Army: outdated, overused to the point of falling apart, working only on the intermittent curses and prayers of the driver-mechanic.

The recent storm has uncovered the dome from the sand, its location some caravan days away from the established merchant routes. Connor doubts there is anything of value left in the farm: that it hasn’t been discovered by merchants doesn’t mean anyone else has never visited it. And it is possible that the merchants only told about it because they had already stripped it of anything useful.

The dome looks late-Colonist to Connor—but he is a fighter, not a historian. Always it was Ian who made sure he didn’t upset their mentors with his lack of knowledge or interest in history.

Connor is a simple man.

He wishes life were simple, too.

(Sometimes he looks at the streets of Ophir from the second floor of the Archive, or a diner in the plaza: two fathers arguing with their daughter over buying some trinket at a merchant stall; two boys barely younger than the age when cadets usually enter full service sharing a bowl of shrimp salad and throwing shy, flustered glances at each other— Connor looks away and pushes these images out of his mind.)

Approaches to the dome have survived—a tunnel like a half buried drilling worm (Connor has only seen drilling worms on picts). There is a keypad by the entrance, out of power, but Ian charges it with a short burst. The three soldiers (the fourth has been left by the rover) startle. They have never worked with Technomancers before. Connor’s fingers prickle as he feels the call for mischief.

The tunnel behind the door is sturdy and filled with sand to the ankle. The soldiers, burdened by the armor and arms, trudge behind Ian, and Connor hastens to catch up with him. They don’t need words as their shoulders brush, and their electric fields align as easily as ever.

“I suppose,” Connor says conversationally, “that, if it is indeed a farm, we could salvage some equip—” He turns to Ian, sensing a sudden change in his field. Outwardly, not a muscle moves in Ian’s face.

Connor grips his staff, then turns around and jogs to the soldiers. “On the defensive!”

One of them, a girl couple of years younger than Connor, frowns. “Wha—”

He extends his staff with a flick of his wrists and barks, _“Now!”_ And in the beat between this moment and the next, he hears Ian’s voice clear as though they are still standing close, “Moles.”

They burst from beneath their feet: two in front of Ian, two more behind him, snarling and rushing to Connor. He stands between them and the stupid kids, then throws himself at the moles. The first strike lands across one of them while it’s still in mid-jump, sending it crashing into the wall of the tunnel.

They are huge and black, skin charred, and howling like sandstorm winds. A yelp rises from where Ian is, but the fine sand the moles’ burst has roused into the air doesn’t let Connor take a look. He sidesteps away from claws reaching to him, jabbing the end of his staff into the mole’s gut.

It doesn’t stop it, and Connor has to dance away—then duck as a nail whistles right near his cheek. It hits the mole square in the forehead. It paws at the spot, and snarls.

He feels metal in his mouth: his own pulsing charge, and Ian’s, prickling his skin.

Connor grins, collapses the staff, grabs the knife in his boot, and sends it into the creature’s neck.

“They are ferals,” Ian shares, calm, his voice somehow reaching every corner of the tunnel. “Their skin is thinner than that of the pack moles. Fire!”

Connor presses himself to the wall at the soldiers unload their rifles into the mole he had thrown at the wall earlier. It flops in the sand and doesn’t move anymore.

Only the residual electricity crackles in the air after that.

Connor wipes his face, giddy with unspent charge. The sand settles, and he sees Ian, soft hair dusted reddish-white with sand, standing still, proud and firm, as though posing for a propaganda poster. Two beasts slain by his feet, their flesh still smoking.

Connor’s heart swells three sizes bigger than his chest.

He steps towards Ian—and something skims the edge of his field. Connor grabs a nailgun from the nearest soldier’s holster just as another mole bursts up right behind Ian, and empties it into the mole’s head. Ian lets out a cry, jumping out of the way of a quintal of muscle, but gets knocked off by the beast’s flailing limbs.

It falls with a muffled thump, twitches one, two times, and goes still.

Conner tosses the empty gun to the astonished boy he took it from, and rushes to Ian. Connor is trying to suppress breathless laughter, and his hands, trembling from it, cannot get a hold on the carcass, and Ian’s glare only worsens it. The handsome face is smeared with mole blood and sand sticking to it.

He rolls the mole away from Ian, and sits down on the mound of sand, tipping his face up. “At least now we have dinner.”

Ian throws a handful of sand at him.


	2. Chapter 2

They skin two of the moles: they are dry and thin but at least it’s something different. One of the girls turns out to be a daughter of a mole hunter—”until one day Mum meet a queen; the queen hunted her, I tell you, sir!” So they are in capable hands.

The farm is desolated, whatever was planted here turned to dust long ago, and water dried up. But there are datapads with books, some of them even not corrupted, written in a language Ian can read. And there’s a water recycling system that would need to be taken apart and moved.

Connor leaves the soldiers tending to the fire and the roasting meat and goes to search for Ian. He has a good idea where his partner is. He circles the central area of the dome, where crops used to be and now nothing but sand remains: it feels wrong to tread there with his heavy boots. One of the small rooms circling the central area, possibly formerly an office, is occupied. Even Connor’s proximity is enough to charge the keypad and open the door.

Ian is inside on a couch, a datapad in his right hand, a notebook balanced on his left thigh. He’s chewing on the end of his pen. “Should have discharged during the fight,” he murmurs without even looking up.

Connor grins, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “I know a different way to discharge.”

Ian looks up at him from the datapad, eyebrows raised.

Connor laughs. “Come on, I know why you got us out on this mission and it isn’t because you were aching to secure an empty old farm.”

“We did find useful things,” Ian points out, but he is putting the datapad away and closes the notebook.

Connor’s heartbeat picks up, and he swings towards Ian on stiff legs. Their fields crackle.

“We are not alone,” Ian murmurs.

Connor kneels over him, the couch dipping. “They are occupied,” he replies, cupping Ian’s face in his palms, wishing he’d removed the gloves beforehand. But Ian is right. They don’t have much time.

It always feels like they never have enough time.

In Ian’s eyes, he sees a reflection of himself. He smiles at how symbolic it appears, and leans down to kiss Ian—slowly, despite the energy coursing through him, compelling him to be fast.

He doesn’t like fast in this.

He wants to have the slow. Like others have, like normal people have.

“Why are you sad?” Ian asks, his arms around Connor. The sensation is dimmed through the thick jacket—he only feels pressure and not heat.

Connor sighs, settling further in Ian’s lap. “I’m all right.” It’s not really an answer, and the prickly desire has slowed down to a heavy, heady thing coiling in his stomach, and he doesn’t want to think about the world outside this small room.

He grinds down experimentally, cables creaking in his arms,—but their uniform is too thick for it to be comfortable. Connor drops his head on Ian’s shoulder with a groan. “I want you.”

The hitch in Ian’s breathing is enough of a consolation. The opportunity to voice his desire without looking over his shoulder electrifies him, too. Their fields twine. Ian’s soft hair stands up on ends, and Connor snorts, then mouths the bit of skin on Ian’s neck above the jacket collar, his lips tingling. Ian shifts under him while Connor lavishes his neck with attention. At least he can have this. Being held, being this close is good enough.

Ian touches the front of his pants, and Connor sighs. “It’s not— _Oh!_ ” The first touch on his cock is electrifying in the most literal sense: Ian’s hand is bare, the residual electricity racing over Connor’s skin at the contact.

He stares at the wall behind the couch without seeing, all his attention on that point of contact.

Ian doesn’t move his hand, but this, his long fingers circled around— Connor shudders, hot under the jacket, the zipper of his fly biting into skin, but he can’t think of any damage. He throws his arms around Ian’s neck and looks down, chest heaving.

Ian’s hand is stark white against the dark gray of their uniform, and Connor watches in a sort of detached way as Ian’s thumb wipes a bead of fluid off the slit, and a moan is more of an afterthought.

Ian’s breathing is just as heavy as his.

“If only they knew,” Connor moans, rolling his hips in time with the incremental movement of Ian’s hand, “how filthy you are, Major…”

Ian catches his earlobe with his teeth and twists his hand, making Connor gasp. “Only for you, _Captain_.”

The heat builds and builds, the charge coiling tighter and tighter—until it snaps with an audible crack and Connor trembles with release, poised above Ian.

“And who’s filthy now?” Ian murmurs.

Connor lowers himself carefully, his thighs pained, and laughs at the expression on Ian’s face as he looks over his soiled hand—and the soiled front of his jacket.

Ian glares at him. “You are getting it out of wiring.”

“ _You_ decided to give me a helping hand.”

“And _you_ started it all.” But Ian’s tone doesn’t fool Connor, because there is a twitch to his lips.

Connor tucks himself in, then slides off the couch and to his knees. Ian watches him with raised eyebrows. “If they walk in on you in this position, you’ll be the one giving explanations.”

“I don’t care.” He smirks, takes Ian’s soiled hand and draws his fingers into his mouth.

No objections follow.


End file.
